Photo Credit: Jim Larrison @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/larrison/14866933889. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Modifications: Changed shop name to NOVELISTS at top of photo
I didn’t say a good novel. I just said a novel. A steady string of new titles once a year for the rest of your life. So here you go, the last piece of writing advice you’ll ever need. Lest you forget this (and I’m definitely paying homage to stealing this idea from Craig Vetter) FIND SOMEWHERE TO TATOO THIS ON YOUR BODY. While you’re finding a good ink shop, let me share my advice:
- Find a comfortable chair. Sit in it for a PROTECTED amount of time every day. Don’t let anything, or anyone, convince you that it’s more important than this block of writing time. And now that you’ve found a comfortable chair, and a sacred time to write, do this…
Write.
Don’t ask me what, and please holy mother of all gods don’t ask me how to get over writer’s block. Just write. And then write again. And then perform the same task over and over again in lieu of all the interesting things your weak human mind will remind you you are missing while you are trying to be a “writer.”
If after a few pages you discover you are not that interesting, which you very well might unless you have been writing a long time, you definitely cannot afford to miss a day feeling sorry for yourself. You have a lot of bad writing to get out of you before you become competent, and then a lot of merely competent writing to get out before you write something inspired. Having fun yet?
Or maybe not. Maybe you will jump from here to there like a kangaroo on ‘roids, and the very next thing you write, or maybe the one right after that, will kick some serious artistic ass (usually pronounced arse) and you will enjoy the fame and fortune you seek, and no doubt deserve, much sooner than my surly middle-aged approach suggests. But guess what? You still have to sit down and write to get from here to there, even if far fewer times than I’m suggesting.
All joking aside (a place I am loathe to hang out, so please don’t make me stay here any longer than needed), I have a question:
Is it really advice you seek, or inspiration?
Three guesses where you find inspiration.
Better get started.
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The Zero by Jess Walter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This novel is stunning, as in emotionally and intellectually. If you read this book trying to add plot threads – 1 + 2 = X – you will miss the power and beauty (yes, beauty) of this novel, which is the experience of reading it.
Jeff Walter’s prose grabs you, his images shake you, and he is able to perfectly capture confusion, the kind that would naturally consume anyone who was part of, or lived near, Ground Zero (thus the title) on 9-11.
Please read this book without trying to understand it. You will be glad you did. I have read The Zero twice, and many sections of it more times than that, and I will continue to re-read it over the years – each time I do I feel as if someone has massaged my brain, and for that I am always thankful.
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I’m here to assert something very simple, but very powerful – That we should each create the world we want to live in, and then have the courage to live in it. What would it take to do that?
Each of us would need to do everything in our power to resist branding, to resist typing, to resist any type of packaging at all.
Each of us would need to constantly remind ourselves, and anyone else who will listen, that the richest life experiences come when we tell ourselves this is who I am, where I am, when I am, and I’m not going to modify myself for anyone. I won’t be quiet, I won’t sit down, I won’t color inside the lines when it’s a lot more fun to color with no lines at all. I don’t need coaching (sorry Corporate America), and I don’t need you to tell me how I ought to be (sorry parents).
Each of us would need to have the courage, the ferocity, the brashness a child has, to celebrate ADHD by calling it G-R-E-A-T, not by telling a child he needs to take Ritalin so he can focus better and become a better reflection of what we want instead of what he might become if we left him alone.
We would need to celebrate art as much as money, a big heart as much as a big house, and love more than ambition.
The temptation is to make our lives simple (even branded), so that we can safely hit the PLAY button over and over again without having to think too much, but our minds know when we are lying and rarely let us get away with it.
The Ultimate Creative Act is to create the world you want to live in, and then to have the courage to live in it. That means using your own judgment and your own interpretations to create a world that’s worthy of you, and not the other way around. With friends? Absolutely. With other people? As many as possible. Anyone who has seriously attempted to create a worthwhile life for themselves always ends up reaching out to others, not pulling away from them.
Why not take a moment to join the conversation? What does the world you want to live in look like?
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What’s the one thing people fear almost as much as being asked Want to see my vacation slideshow? It’s being told that you just got back from [[fill in the name of your country]], and boy do you have some stories to tell!
Alright, maybe it’s not that bad, but if you want people to read and enjoy your memoir (not run from it), follow these 5 tips to make sure you create something that people will read and remember.
Tip #1 – Lie. You don’t need to tell every single word of the truth, especially if the truth took you to boring places, or if you went to interesting places but were forced to spend time with boring people. Your readers don’t want to read about real people; they want to read about interesting real people. I stole that line from another writer, but since he shared it conversationally I don’t feel obligated to footnote it (thanks, Bob).
Tip #2 – If you absolutely must use the French word, or the Latvian word, or the Chinese word for ordinary things like tower or street or restaurant, make sure those words are easy for people to pronounce in their heads. For example, if I tell you the Chinese word for chef is shurfu, you can pronounce that word, even if you don’t pronounce it correctly. But if I tell you the Chinese word for young is xiao, I have no right to expect you to pronounce it correctly, and you have every right to be annoyed every time you’re forced to try (and no, x-eo is nowhere close to right).
Tip #3 – If you are struggling with your memoir, tear off the first 50 pages and start from there. Then your story will start in the middle, about where your story gets very interesting, and not at the moment of your birth, which might be interesting, but probably is only to you. I stole this tip from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. during a speech he delivered called How To Get A Job Like Mine, during which he spoke almost entirely about the importance of the U.S. peace movement.
Tip #4 – Write more about people than places. A foreign place is interesting to people who have been there, seen there, felt there, smelled and tasted there. You have to be a pretty polished and experienced writer to get people to see, feel, taste, and smell places they have not visited themselves. People, on the other hand, are immediately interesting (assuming you’ve followed tip #1). Write more about people than you do the specific place you lived, then, gradually, start working the place in, behind the scenes, as part of the story instead of being the story. And here is tip 4B – Boy meets girl always works. Always. Find some relationship to feature in your memoir. If not boy meets girl, son meets father, daughter understands mother, student respects teacher.
Tip #5 – You don’t need to have lived through a spy story, or have been chased by security forces, or have gotten involved in illegal activities to make your memoir interesting, but something needs to have happened that readers will care about, if not to you, to someone in your story. If you are going to write a memoir, make sure the story you tell would be interesting even if it took place in the country you normally live in.
Okay, that should get you started, correct your course, or give you enough energy to keep going. Here is a bonus tip: If you are going to write travel memoirs… you need to read travel memoirs. Here are a few you might find interesting:
Iron and Silk, by Mark Salzman. If you read Salzman’s book about China and my book about China, you’ll swear we lived in two completely different countries. Iron and Silk tells an engaging story about Salzman’s relationship with his martial arts master.
Rowing to Latitude: Journeys Along the Arctic’s Edge, by Jill Fredston. A woman and her husband row the arctic circle – all of it. This book is a beautiful celebration of exploration, both personal and natural. Funny, well-written, and honest.
The Wisdom of Donkeys: Finding Tranquility in a Chaotic World, by Andy Merrifield. This book celebrates the search for tranquility and a slower pace of life. You must be a seasoned, patient reader to fall for this book, and if you are you’ll enjoy a long and interesting walk.
An Embarrassment of Mangoes: A Caribbean Interlude, by Ann Vanderhoof. For anyone who wants to throw in the towel, live their own way, or sail half way around the world to find happiness.
Any Bill Bryson book about travel. Bryson’s books are easy to get lost in, and are a nice mixture of inspiration and insight.
Before you go, why not leave the name of your favorite travel memoir in the Comment box?
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See this book on Amazon.com
Wonderful, beautiful, always liberating technology. Or maybe not. Set in California’s Silicon Valley, OHM follows the lives of famous inventors, powerful entrepreneurs, and three ordinary people as they search for meaning in a world of runaway technology and reckless ambition. OHM will have you asking one question over and over again. Did this really happen?
Did a Silicon Valley entrepreneur really drive his new car off the edge of a mountain the same day his company went public and made him rich?
Did a line worker actually get away with shoving hundreds of valuable computer chips into a laundry bag, then dipping a motorcycle engine into a vat of gold?
Did a Silicon Valley executive with a rare blood disease really wear an IV drip into a manufacturing area just because he feared losing his share of the profit when his company went public?
And just when you think you have it figured out – the difference between the real and the imagined – you will peek around that corner we call tomorrow and ask – Will this happen too?
You can buy this book now on Amazon.com
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